Rebirth

I had been out there for maybe about a half-hour when Cindy came out to join me. She had worked late the night before and had only just woken up. I smiled when I saw.

"Hey, lover! How'd you sleep?"

She made a noncommittal noise and sat down in the chair next to mine. She took her one hand in mine and idly stroked the back of it with her fingers. That she didn't speak for a little bit was not unusual; she always was slow to rise. So for the longest time, we simply sat and held hands as the birds chirped around us and the distant traffic hummed a few streets over. I felt like it was going to be a good day.

"Jack," she finally started without looking at me, "did you talk to AnnaBelle last night?"

"Yeah. Just small stuff, how the kids were doing and all of that. Why?"

Cindy gave a small nod, those gorgeous curls of hers bouncing. "Did she say... I don't know, did she say anything else?"

I puffed a breath out as I tried to think. Remembering things was still a little difficult for me at times, but I was pretty good when it came to my sister and her family. "No, not really. We didn't talk long." A neuron finally fired. "Oh, yeah! I forgot she had mentioned that she had gotten the results back from that DNA test she'd done a few months ago. She's really been serious about the whole genealogy thing recently. Don't know for the life of me what she thinks she's going to find."

"I think it's more for the kids," Cindy offered up quietly. "She and Duncan want to give them a sense of where they came from."

I laughed. "They're adults now! Well, except for James. But even he's old enough to know that he wasn't found under a cabbage leaf!"

"Sometimes it's important for kids to know about their family history, I guess." Cindy smiled wanly. "Nothing else?"

Now, I have not always been the swiftest horse in the race, but her tone left me frowning. Cindy usually wasn't the evasive sort.

"Noooo," I drawled, trying to prompt her along. Maybe my sister had seemed a bit distracted when I last spoke with her. "Should she have?"

My girlfriend clicked her tongue in annoyance, her full lips twisting wryly. "Maybe? She asked me to talk to you about it today, but I kinda hoped she would have gone into it a little." Cindy bit her upper lip, then sighed. "OK, look. You were talking about how she's been doing all of this genealogy stuff, right? Trying to reconnect with lost family members and everything?"

I wasn't sure where she was going with any of this. My father had passed away at a young age, and we'd never been close to his side of the family, so I could see why AnnaBelle might have taken an interest. Plus, we had a few cousins on my mother's side who we hadn't heard from in decades. Who doesn't love a mystery? There are TV shows that are all about discovering one's roots, after all! But Cindy was making it sound ominous.

I stayed silent and gestured with my free hand to get on with it. Another smile flickered across her lips, and she squeezed the hand that she was holding, much as she had when she visited me in the hospital.

"What if AnnaBelle found something out? Something from your past that you didn't know about. Something about -" She took a deep breath "- Gwen."

The turn in conversation made me squirm in my chair, and I could feel my jaw tightening. "Cindy, love... I'm supposed to put it all behind me. That's what all the therapists have said. I need to either accept the past or let it go. I've done a shit job over the years at accepting it, so I've let it go. So if it turns out that Gwen was my cousin or my half-sister or my aunt or whatever, I'm better off not knowing."

Cindy gave a small growl of frustration. "You might not be, Jack. Better off, that is. But then again, maybe you would be. AnnaBelle found this out two weeks ago, she told me about it the night before last, and the two of us have been wrangling over whether or not to tell you. Because, yeah, it's about Gwen, but at the same time, it isn't. Plus, we know how you feel about secrets, and neither of us wants you to find this out the hard way."

"That bad, huh?" I took a deep breath, thinking. What to do, what to do?! I really didn't want to dredge up the past, especially in regards to my ex-wife. I felt that I had made a lot of progress in the past five years, and even without knowing the details, I was afraid that being dragged back into the past might cause a setback. Then again, I hated secrets. Both my lover and my sister were clearly worried about what my reaction might be if I were unpleasantly surprised again.

Although I could not for the life of me think of what sort of news could be as unpleasant as when I'd found out about Gwen's relationship with Joe! For me, being shot and almost dying still didn't compare to that betrayal. That's how sensitive I still was about the whole thing!

The tip of my tongue explored the inside of my one cheek as I wrestled with the dilemma, but finally, I could only see one path before me. It wasn't one that I wanted to take, but the pained look on Cindy's face told me that it was the only option.

"Well, if it's got both of you worked up, then... I'd better hear it, I guess."

She bit her lower lip, nodding, and then slid out of her chair to kneel before me. She took up my other hand. Looking up into my face, I could only see love and concern in those lovely eyes of hers.

"Jack? AnnaBelle discovered that you have a daughter. Through Gwen. And she wants to meet you."

My brain stopped working. I could not possibly have heard what I just heard, the weight of this new information being too great to grasp within my mind.

"That's..." What did I want to say? The sheer implausibility of it all boggled my mind! "That's impossible. I mean, it's been twenty years since I last saw Gwen, I haven't... No, that can't be right!"

Cindy squeezed my hands tightly. She rose up a little to try and calm me down. "Shhh, Jack, I know it sounds, I don't know, odd, I guess? But you told me that you had one last fling with Gwen the same day that the divorce was finalized. Couldn't lightning have struck?"

I didn't know what to think! A daughter? All this time, I had had a daughter and didn't know about it?!

"I... I suppose? But... "

Finishing complete sentences was beyond me. I was stunned. My lovely, quiet afternoon with my lively, vivacious lover had just been set on fire and thrown out of a very high window.

Twenty years! So this girl, she would be about nineteen. Gwen and I had always wanted children when we were married. Now it seemed we had had one, and I had lost nineteen years of her life. The black core of depression threatened to rise up and smother me again.

Cindy must have seen it coming because she wrapped her arms around me and hugged me tightly. She clung to me as though to keep me from drowning.

"Why didn't Gwen tell me? She could have told me."

"I don't know, babe," Cindy whispered, holding me tight. "I'm sorry. AnnaBelle and I didn't want to sit on this for too long before we asked you about it. But the only way to find any answers is to talk to this girl."

My girlfriend released her hug and sank back down to her knees, still holding my hands. Those emerald green eyes of hers scanned my face with worry. "Did you want to see her, Jack? Do you think you can talk to her?"

Nineteen years...

"What's her name?"

Cindy smiled again, reassured by what she took as a positive step. "Her name is Charity. She's in Vermont, finishing her freshman year in college."

Charity. That was one of the names that Gwen and I had agreed on if we ever had a daughter.

Licking my lips and swallowing, I asked the only question that really mattered at that point. My voice was soft with regret.

"When can I meet her?"

***

Arrangements were made. Cindy took care of everything for me, setting up a date and time with Charity. It was only a day or two after she broke the news to me that I found myself pacing the living room nervously. I hadn't actually spoken to Charity yet. Through our intermediary, we both agreed to wait until we saw each other face to face. I still wasn't sure that any of this was a good idea, but I reasoned that regardless of my ex-wife, Charity was not to blame for anything. It wouldn't be fair to not hear her out.

Cindy excused herself as the time drew near. "This is something I think you need to face on your own, Jack." She kissed me gently. "But I'll be outside if you need me, OK?"

Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Swallowing, I looked at the door as though there was a monster on the other side of it. After a few heartbeats, I forced myself to put my hand on the knob and open it.

My heart nearly broke again. She looked like Gwen.

She was taller and a bit broader in the shoulders, reminding me of AnnaBelle. Those wide-cheeks and narrow chin, though, with those deep brown eyes? That was all Gwen. Her hair was cut the same way, too -- long, smooth tresses that fell to her backside but with sharply cut bangs in front. The hair was brown instead of Gwen's usual black dye-job. Outside of that, there was no missing that this was Gwen's daughter. Not that my ex-wife usually wore anything as simple as blue jeans and a maroon college hoodie.

There was one more thing that stood out about this girl, one final nail to drive home that this was my child. Around her slender neck hung the antique choker that I had given Gwen on that fateful day.

We stood there staring at each other for several moments, neither of us sure of what to say or do. I wondered if she saw anything other than a tall, thin man with greying brown hair and a cane. Was I anything like she expected to find?

After several more seconds, I made the first move. "Uh, hi. You're Charity?"

The young woman nodded. Her smile was hesitant. "Yes. Charity Eisenberger." Eisenberger was Joe's last name. "Although looking at your now, I wonder now if it shouldn't be Charity Brandt."

With nothing that I think of to say in response to that, I stepped back and waved her inside. She sat on the sofa while I parked myself into my usual armchair near to her. Settling back, I pointed with the end of my cane towards the small cooler on the floor between us. "Help yourself. There's beer, soda, water. I find it easier to have that close at hand than to limp my way into the kitchen."

Charity politely declined. She wanted to get right into it. "You, you are Jack Brandt, right?"

"Guilty."

"Which means you're my father."

A heavy sigh escaped me. "That seems to be the case from what my sister tells me, yeah. She shared all of the DNA reports from that ancestry app with me. Were you... looking for me?"

Charity shook her head in a way that brought back some painful memories. God, she had her mother's mannerisms, too! "Not really. I was actually looking for my mother's father. She'd told me how he'd abused her and her mother, how he disappeared one day. I obsessed a bit over finding him. I wanted to know why he did it. A... friend... bought me one of those DNA kits for Christmas. My friend thought we might be able to find him that way. It was a bit of a long-shot, but it was cheaper than hiring a private investigator."

"Let me guess," I interrupted softly, "You found an aunt you didn't know you had. One that wasn't related to your mother or your father."

Closing her eyes, Charity bobbed her chin once in acknowledgment. "I didn't know what to think, at first. I didn't know who the hell she was or how she fit in. I thought maybe it was a mistake or a coincidence. But then the app started linking me to other people I didn't know, and I found there was a whole side to my family that was a mystery."

My daughter opened her eyes to look at me bravely in the eyes. "That's when the truth started to come out. I contacted AnnaBelle through the app, then through email, then we started calling each other. And she told me everything. About you and my mom, about Joe."

"Joe's your father?"

Charity snorted. "On paper, yeah. Not that he was ever much of one, really. He tried! He really did, and I forgive him for that. But I always made him uncomfortable."

"Do you think he knew? That your mother and I... You know, that one last time?"

"I gave some thought to that, and I don't think he did. He's always believed that I was his. When I confronted Mom with all of this, she broke down and begged me not to tell him. She said it was the one secret that she hid from him. A secret that was 'only fair', she said."

This made me snort. "Oh, fuck. The irony of that. The sheer fucking irony of it." I tilted my head to one side to regard her shrewdly. If Joe had gotten Gwen pregnant, their plan was to pass it off as mine. Oh, that the tables should be turned!

"Your mother did tell you what led up to our divorce, yes?"

Charity gave a humorous laugh, her eyes going around the room to avoid looking at me. "Yes, although it took a lot of effort to get her to do so. What she didn't cover, your sister filled me in on."

Her gaze ended at the tip of her sneakers. The tone of her voice dropped to something just above a whisper, and she sounded so very small and vulnerable. "I didn't know the two of you had been married and gotten divorced. I didn't even know you existed! You weren't talked about, not in front of me, anyway. There wasn't anything that Mom or Dad ever said that made me think she'd ever been married to anyone but my him."

Now that we were talking, it was amazing how calm I had become. "Your mother was good at keeping secrets," I consoled her. I gestured towards her neck. "Did she give you that choker before or after you found out about me?"

Her long finger absently went to her throat, stroking the metal. "She gave this to me when I was six, although it didn't actually fit until I was fourteen. I've worn it almost every day since." A darkness came over her, and her jaw set itself into a familiar line. "When I confronted her about you, that's when she told me where it came from."

"My last present to her," I recalled.

She cocked her head to one side, the darkness lightening. "I remember being little and hearing her crying a lot. Mostly at night when dad was away. Once I asked her why she was crying, and she told me something like, 'Because he's alone out there.' I had thought she was just missing Dad, but now?"

"Your mother and I loved each other very much," I reassured Charity, "but what she wanted wasn't going to work out."

"And so you left."

"And so I left." Another heavy silence filled the room. We were both lost in our own thoughts until I cut in with a question of my own. "Did your mother tell you why she never let me know about you?"

Another sharp bark of laughter. "I had to pry it out of her, but yes. The short of it is that she knew you were trying to leave that life behind you because it hurt you too much. She had hurt you too much. She felt that if you did find out about me, you would resent us both. That you would feel like she was pulling you back into a relationship with her that you wouldn't want."

Trust Gwen, she really had known me. "I might have." I had thought about this a great deal over the past couple of days while waiting to meet Charity, and her answer was one that I had considered as being plausible. "I went into a very dark place for a very long time after your mother. I can't say what I would have done then."

I extended a hand towards her, palm up in invitation. "Now, though? Now I wish she had told me about you. It seems unfair to both of us that we didn't get that chance."

"She also told me that she wanted to keep something of you, something of what you had shared all to herself." Charity looked at me with such great hope in eyes. "You don't resent me?"

I had to stop from laughing out loud in relief! "Why would I resent you?! I was afraid that you would hate me for having left your mother and you!"

She smiled, took my hand eagerly, and shook her head. "I started to until I got the whole story. I had thought that maybe you hadn't wanted me, and that's why you left her. Now I found out it's because she was playing silly games all this time."

"In fairness to Gwen, I wouldn't call it playing." Maybe I had softened my heart towards my ex a little. "Your mother seemed to believe that the best way of dealing with something unpleasant was to not deal with it. She didn't want to tell me about what was going on with Joe, so she didn't. She didn't want to tell Joe that he might not be the father, so she didn't. She didn't want you to know anything at all about me, so she said nothing. I'm not sure I can forgive her for that, but I can understand it."

I gave my daughter's hand a gentle squeeze. "But that has nothing to do with you."

"God, I wish you had been my father growing up! You seem so much better at talking about stuff than Dad. If this were him, he'd have told me that this wasn't 'his thing' and that I should go talk to Mom."

"Joe, you mean? Well, I think it's something of a self-fulfilling prophecy there. He had once said that he wanted kids but that he'd be a horrible father. I doubt that he ever gave himself the chance."

A thoughtful expression crossed her face as she thought about my words. "What do we do now? Do I call you Dad, now?"

I raised both eyebrows. "That might be jumping the gun a bit. Sounds better than 'Sperm Donor', but there's still a lot we don't know about each other to feel too comfortable with that. Better than you call me 'Jack.' At least for now."

Charity nodded. She looked crestfallen, enough so that I was quick to jump back in. "But now that we know about one another, Charity, we can take the time to get to know each other, if you'd like. I know I would!"

That was rewarded by a grin that looked as though it could have come off of my own face. "So I can move in?"

I could tell it was a joke, and I started laughing. The last of the tension inside of me vented with that laugh, and I gave her a grin of equal measure. "Depends. You thinking of bringing boys home now and then?"

She blushed suddenly, caught off guard. "No! I mean... Boys wouldn't be... a problem."

Ah. "So this friend," I inquired, "the one who gave you the DNA kit. Not a boy, I take it?"

"No."

"And maybe something more than a friend?"

Charity let go of my hand and shrank back into the couch. "Is that... Is that a problem?"

I left the grin on my face to show that it wasn't. "Well, I don't know. I haven't met her yet. But I'd like to. If she's here with you, we could go out for dinner together. How does that sound?"

The way the tension evaporated from her features was adorable! Charity was filled with an excitement that reminded me far more of Cindy than of Gwen. "Yes! I mean, I'd have to ask her, but she's at the motel. We were hoping that if things went well with you today, that maybe we could find part-time jobs up here until classes start at the end of summer. That way, we could all get to know each other."

I reached forward and gently took her hand again. "I think that's as good a start as any of us could hope for. There's one thing I need to ask of you, Charity."

"What's that, Jack?" She grimaced. "Boy, it sounds weird coming out of my mouth." Shaking her head to clear her thoughts, she leaned forward again. "What do you need of me?"

I hesitated this time. I didn't know what dreams or fantasies my daughter might have had in regard to this reunion, but there were certain that I had to let her know were not possible.

"Your mother. Gwen. I... I don't want to know." I swallowed. Damn Gwen! It still hurt after all these years! "I don't want to know how she's doing or where she's living or who she's with. I don't want to see her or talk to her. I don't want to know about her. Or Joe. And I don't want them to know about me. I don't want them in my life, and I don't want to be in theirs. Only yours."